1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is related to a hemoglobin A1c-specific aptamer and a hemoglobin-specific aptamer and their applications thereof. 2. The Prior Arts
Diabetes mellitus is a non-communicable disease and has gradually become one of the major diseases that threaten people's health in recent years. The etiology of diabetes mellitus is related to the insufficiency or dysfunction of insulin. Insulin is a hormone produced by the pancreas which promotes the entrance of glucose into cells to generate energy and heat; thus, if the human body could not produce enough insulin or the insulin produced was not functioning properly, the blood sugar concentration would maintain in high level since glucose was not able to enter the cells, resulting in diabetes mellitus. According to research, diabetes mellitus is closely related to genetic inheritance and is likely to cause many complications, for example cardiovascular diseases, pneumonitis, neuropathy, chronic kidney diseases, blindness, etc. Diabetes mellitus is also related to some improper lifestyle, hence, is considered to be the most challenging health problem in the 21st century.
For treatment of diabetes mellitus, early diagnosis and the control after the disease is diagnosed can reduce the possibility of the occurrence of complications. As a result, it is necessary to develop diabetes-related detections. Currently, the change in blood sugar (fasting and postprandial blood sugar measurements) is commonly used as the diagnosis of treatment of diabetes mellitus as well as the control during treatment. However, blood sugar measurements are likely to be affect by diet, exercise, and insulin, etc, resulting in unstable fluctuation and low accuracy in terms of diagnosis and monitoring. Meanwhile, hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) can also be used as indicator in the detection of diabetes mellitus since measuring the change of HbA1c reflects the stable state of blood sugar level in approximately 3 months, which is more reliable comparing to measuring blood sugar.
Method for detecting HbA1c nowadays including: Cation exchange HPLC and Boronate Affinity HPLC, etc, however, due to high cost, the requirement of sophisticated equipments, and long processing time, they cannot effectively replace the conventional detection of blood sugar level. Although immunoassay can also be used for the detection of HbA1c, the antibodies used are often expensive. The antibodies themselves are very sensitive to conditions of the surrounding environment such as temperature and moisture, thus, are easy to lose activity and cause inconvenience when transport, store, or use. Furthermore, since antibodies are prepared in batch, activity of antibody is not identical among batches, while errors are likely to occur when operating antibodies due to manual mistakes or effects of the environment of the operation.
Accurate diagnosis and blood sugar control are the foundation of diabetes mellitus treatments, thus a method or product for the detection of HbA1c is needed. However, currently, the market still lacks an accurate, cost-effective, easy-to-store, and highly efficient detecting technique for measuring the level of HbA1c.